


bleeding heart

by inkin_brushes



Series: Immortals (Vamp AU) [44]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6283138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkin_brushes/pseuds/inkin_brushes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re having trouble dealing with these feelings in a sensible way because you don’t know how to deal with feelings, period.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	bleeding heart

It took what felt like an eternity, Sanghyuk sitting in the dark with his teeth digging into his bottom lip, fingertips trembling, but finally Jaehwan’s crying quietened down into soft hiccups, and the moment, the spell, was broken. Sanghyuk slid off the bed and went into the bathroom to find one of the many soft face towels that Jaehwan had lying around. He wet one of them with warm water, taking a moment to breathe heavily through his nose while he waited for the water to heat up.   
  
When he went back into the bedroom, Jaehwan was sitting upright and was scrubbing at his face with the heel of his hand. Sanghyuk handed him the towel, careful to make sure that their hands didn’t brush. His trembling had calmed some. “Here,” he said. “Use this.”   
  
Jaehwan took it, something tentative in his movements. He rubbed it against his face and seemed a little surprised to find it warm rather than cold. Sanghyuk eyed the sheets and wondered about the virtues of burning them rather than trying to wash them. That felt like a question for another day, at that point in time. He was feeling washed out in a way that he really didn’t like.   
  
“I’m going to go get some blood bags,” he said quietly. Jaehwan stilled, his eyes flicking up to look at Sanghyuk over the washcloth. “I need you to drink them.”   
  
Jaehwan looked, for a moment, as though he was going to refuse. Sanghyuk wasn’t sure what he would do if he did that. Probably lose his temper, or just walk out. He couldn’t deal with a difficult Jaehwan much longer, and thankfully, Jaehwan seemed to sense that. He nodded, and Sanghyuk let himself out of the room.   
  
Outside of Jaehwan’s bedroom, it seemed easier to breathe. Not for the first time, Sanghyuk realised how stale the air seemed in Jaehwan’s room, the air tainted with the smell of spilled blood. Right now the underground location seemed more like a con rather than the pro it usually was. He’d really like to open up some windows and air this place out. It felt too much like a tomb right now.  
  
He took his time making his way to the kitchen and grabbing three blood bags out of the fridge. Jaehwan could probably do with some time to compose himself, but Sanghyuk didn’t want to give him enough time to put himself on the defensive. When he let himself back into the bedroom, without knocking, Jaehwan was sitting crosslegged on top of the duvet and the cloth was lying crumpled on the bedside table.   
  
Sanghyuk held out the blood bags. Jaehwan took one, dropping the other two on the bed beside him. He sipped at it, slowly and steadily. He looked better now that the blood had been cleaned from his face, but the bags under his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks looked physically painful. It was jarring to see him look so haggard.   
  
Jaehwan made his way through the three blood bags without a word of complaint; without a single word, in fact. He was staring down at a spot near the foot of the bed and didn’t seem to have noticed Sanghyuk’s eyes on him. Sanghyuk checked his phone surreptitiously and found it nearing sunrise. No wonder Jaehwan seemed out of it.   
  
Jaehwan lay the last blood bag down and finally lifted his head, blinking drowsily. Sanghyuk gathered the empty bags to him and slid off the bed. “I’m going to go,” he said. Jaehwan jerked a little. When he looked up, he looked a little betrayed. Sanghyuk chose to ignore that. “You need to sleep.”   
  
Jaehwan looked around at himself. “The sheets—” he started, then broke off with a shrug. He looked back up at Sanghyuk. “Will you come back tomorrow?”   
  
“Go to sleep, Jaehwan,” Sanghyuk said softly. “You’re exhausted.”  
  
“Love,” Jaehwan said quietly.   
  
“Don’t, Jaehwan,” Sanghyuk said. There was a very tense moment before Jaehwan nodded, looking away, his lashes lowering and standing out starkly against his pale skin. Sanghyuk strode to the door and then stopped, looking back just for a second. Jaehwan was trying to find an area to sleep on that hadn’t been ruined, but he stilled and looked up when he heard Sanghyuk’s footsteps stop. For a moment, their eyes met, and then Sanghyuk turned away.   
  
In the kitchen, Sanghyuk dropped the blood bags in the trash and thought about grabbing one of the sodas that were still in the fridge for the road, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He could feel something under his skin, a nasty itchy feeling that he wanted rid of. Staying here any longer wouldn’t be good for him, he knew.   
  
Outside, the sun was just starting to come up, turning the sky shades of yellow and orange. Already Sanghyuk could see the streetlights flickering off. He climbed into his car and drove home on autopilot, keeping his attention focused on the cars around him and off the thoughts threatening to overwhelm him.   
  
He took a shower once he was home, using up all his hot water as he stood under the spray. He was rinsing off his hair when the water started to cool and he hurried before it could turn icy against his overheated skin. When he stepped out, the air was a white mist and he kept having to wipe the condensation from the mirror to look at himself.   
  
He wished, not for the first time, that when the others had come to him, they had given him some sort of handbook. He didn’t know what the next steps were. He thought he could plan something out but Jaehwan had proven, so many times, that he could easily ruin all of Sanghyuk’s best laid plans.  
  
He lay his forehead against his mirror. His exhaustion felt bone marrow deep at this point. First thing, he thought, was to make sure that Jaehwan resumed taking care of himself. Sanghyuk didn’t want to keep being responsible for him like this. He couldn’t cut Jaehwan out like he’d wanted to, and he saw now that it had been a naive hope in the first place. But he didn’t have to be the one taking care of his basic needs. They needed to get him functioning again.  
  
After that — well, he supposed it depended on how much Jaehwan was willing to do. He’d seemed amenable in his own way tonight but there could be no telling how he would be any other night. Sanghyuk would go back tonight and see where things stood. He’d figure out the rest then.   
  
“God help you,” he told his reflection tersely. “You’re a bleeding heart.”   
  
——  
  
Sanghyuk parked up his car just shortly after the sun had set, but the streets were already mostly deserted. A steady drizzle had started up, so he walked briskly, his collar turned up against the drip of water against the back of his neck. He passed a young girl closing up a coffee shop, and she shifted when she saw him, favouring her right side. She probably had a knife in her waistband, he thought. Decent for use against a human, at least.   
  
The house was quiet when he walked in. He still couldn’t be sure if Hongbin and Wonshik were around— he thought they probably were, since it was early, but they didn’t make themselves known, in any case. Good. He still didn’t know what he wanted to say to them about why he was there. Had they thought that asking Sanghyuk to intervene would be a one time deal? Surely they would have known not. But Sanghyuk didn’t much care right now, they’d dragged him back in either way.  
  
He diverted to the kitchen on his way to Jaehwan’s room. He grabbed a few blood bags to take through. They seemed to be running low, and he wondered who kept the supply stocked up, whether Wonshik or Hongbin would have had any way of getting more if Jaehwan had remained, essentially, comatose. Maybe they could have gone to see Taekwoon. Maybe Sanghyuk should contact him and ask him to bring more around.   
  
He opened Jaehwan’s door without knocking. The glass was still on the floor and he made a mental note to remind Jaehwan to clear it up. One of Jaehwan’s many candle holders was missing, he’d noticed, and he remembered Wonshik saying that Jaehwan had been violent towards them. Throwing things seemed to be a theme in Jaehwan’s tantrums.   
  
Jaehwan was still in bed, and he stirred only when Sanghyuk shut the door quietly behind him. He looked marginally better than yesterday, and there didn’t seem to be any evidence of new tears, which Sanghyuk could only be pleased about.   
  
Jaehwan sat up. He didn’t seem fully awake yet. “Love?” he slurred. Then something seemed to clear on his face. “You came back.”   
  
Sanghyuk dumped one of the bags in Jaehwan’s lap. “Drink this,” he ordered. “Then take a shower. You need one and it’ll make you feel better.”  
  
Jaehwan gaped at him, eyes going from the blood bags to Sanghyuk’s face. “Love, I—”   
  
“I’m going to go wait in the library for you,” Sanghyuk said. “You can meet me there.”  
  
He left before Jaehwan could say anything else. He could see already that Jaehwan had taken his arrival as a sign of— something, something good, positive. Positive to Jaehwan, at least, and Sanghyuk didn’t really want to dwell too much on that. It would have been kinder, better, on both of them, if they’d stayed away from one another, but Jaehwan had snatched that option away and now was reading into Sanghyuk coming around as if he’d had a choice.   
  
Sanghyuk knew the way to the library well, the familiarity bringing him some comfort. He had spent a lot of time in the library, considering that most of his time at Jaehwan’s place had been spent on sex. He liked the library. It felt more loved, in a way, than the rest of the house, if not more lived in. Maybe it was just because there was more of Jaehwan’s touch here, more of a sense that he had had a hand in creating it. A lot of the books on the walls were books that belonged to him, and the set up was one which was attuned to Jaehwan and his needs. The rest of the house, aside from Jaehwan’s bedroom, felt like a shrine to his maker, untouched since he had once been here.   
  
He browsed the bookshelves, waiting for Jaehwan to shower and shuffle over. He had read a few of these books, ones that Jaehwan had let him borrow or ones that he’d simply taken and then returned. Jaehwan probably was aware of it, even when Sanghyuk didn’t ask. Sanghyuk could never quite remember where he had taken them from, and if there was one thing he knew Jaehwan could be particular about, it was the correct ordering of his things.  
  
Ten minutes passed, then fifteen, before he heard the door to the room creak open. Sanghyuk sat down on the nearest couch, a green, velvet monstrosity, and braced himself.   
  
——  
  
Jaehwan shuffled slowly into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Sanghyuk was sitting on one of the couches, looking at him carefully. Jaehwan let him, not sure what was happening, or what Sanghyuk really wanted from him. He’d showered, and dressed in a pair of slacks, and the first button down shirt he’d found in his wardrobe. His hair was still slightly damp.   
  
Whatever Sanghyuk was looking for, he apparently found, because his shoulders relaxed and he motioned to the open seat next to him. “Sit down,” he said.   
  
Jaehwan eyed him and then shuffled over to the couch. The shower had revived him somewhat — vampire sleep was not the same as human sleep but Jaehwan found that bathing felt good either way — but he still felt wrong, worn out. It had been a long time, since he’d been so depleted on blood, and this was more than that, anyway. He could feel Sanghyuk’s warmth, even with how cold the room must have been. It felt like Sanghyuk’s presence was brushing up against him. It was agony.   
  
“Okay,” said Sanghyuk. His tone was brisk. Jaehwan hated it. “We need to sort this out.”   
  
Jaehwan blinked at him. “What?”   
  
“This,” Sanghyuk said. He waved a hand between the two of them. “You need to snap out of whatever this is and go— go back to being you.”   
  
Jaehwan felt a surge of something. He was so used to feeling nothing but wretched that it took him a moment to realise it was anger. “Oh, yes,” he snapped out, dripping with sarcasm. “I’ll just snap my fingers and fall out of love and everything will be fine again.”   
  
“Jaehwan—”  
  
“I can’t believe I never thought of that before, Sanghyuk.”   
  
“I get it,” Sanghyuk interrupted. He fixed Jaehwan with a look. “Jaehwan, I get that you’re in pain. But this isn’t working, you’re not _functioning_. You can’t just melt down, you can’t, that’s— it’s not fair to Wonshik, or Hongbin, it’s not fair on _me_.”   
  
Jaehwan opened his mouth, a retort on his tongue. At this point, Sanghyuk appealing to Jaehwan’s sense of _fairness_ just seemed cruel. Where was Sanghyuk’s sense of fairness? None of this was fair on Jaehwan, either, and he just wanted—  
  
Then he stopped, he closed his mouth. “I don’t know how,” he said, so quietly it was almost a whisper. “I don’t know how to function, love.”   
  
Sanghyuk slumped a little, rubbing at his temples with his fingers. Jaehwan wanted to reach out and rub the tension out of his shoulders, run his hand along his spine. Sanghyuk muttered under his breath, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do.” He probably didn’t mean for Jaehwan to hear, but he did.   
  
“Are you sure— are you sure you can’t love me back?” It came out soft, rough, raw, like it was being scraped out of him, and he felt like it had been. Sanghyuk looked up at him, frowning, but he seemed — less hard, maybe, more open to—  
  
“You know I can’t, Jaehwan,” he said, as soft as Jaehwan had spoke. “You’d rip me to shreds, and you know it.”  
  
Jaehwan stared at him, unable to stop. He could feel himself trembling, shaking like he had as a human during the winter. Shaking like he had when he’d been caught underneath Sanghyuk that first time, Sanghyuk inside of him. Sanghyuk bit his bottom lip and turned his face away, staring resolutely at the empty fireplace.   
  
Jaehwan wanted to protest, to tell Sanghyuk that he was wrong, but it was true, every word of it. And Jaehwan was sorry, for this. For bringing it to this point, where Sanghyuk didn’t feel like he could do the only thing that Jaehwan wanted from him right now.   
  
“I’m sorry,” Jaehwan said, meaning it down to his core.   
  
Sanghyuk sighed harshly. “Do you even— no, it doesn’t matter.”   
  
There was a long stretch of silence. Jaehwan watched Sanghyuk, who didn’t look at him. He seemed to be gearing himself up to say something but he didn’t know what. Jaehwan asked, “So, where can we go from here?” He nearly managed to match Sanghyuk’s brisk tone. Nearly.   
  
“Well, you probably need to pull your head out of your ass,” Sanghyuk muttered, and Jaehwan flinched before he could stop himself. Sanghyuk sat up straighter and looked at Jaehwan. “Sorry, I didn’t mean— I’m not used to— to having to treat you gently, Jaehwan. I meant you’ve been living with your head in the sand, and I think you need to face all the shit that you’ve been repressing. You’re having trouble dealing with these feelings in a sensible way because you don’t know how to deal with feelings, period.”   
  
Jaehwan flinched again, curling back against the couch. “I don’t know what—”  
  
“All you do is repress, repress, and then lash out whenever anyone gets too close or try to make you face them. You’ve been doing this for three hundred years and it’s become your coping method. But you can’t go on like this, Jaehwan.”  
  
Jaehwan stood up jerkily, pacing forward a little before he stopped abruptly. He could feel it, inside him, that urge to lash out, as Sanghyuk had said. To turn this around onto Sanghyuk, to react angrily until Sanghyuk went away and stopped pushing.   
  
There was so much pain buried inside of him and he didn’t want to look at any of it.   
  
“I don’t know how to start,” he said, “or even where I’d start. I can’t do it.”   
  
Sanghyuk looked at him, his eyes clear and knowing. “You can’t,” he said, “or you won’t?”   
  
Jaehwan turned away from him. Now it was his turn to stare into the empty fireplace. It struck him again, how well Sanghyuk knew him. It seemed fantastical that Sanghyuk could know him so well and yet not love him back.   
  
“I can’t do it alone,” he told the fireplace.   
  
He heard Sanghyuk inhale and then exhale heavily, not quite a sigh. “I can be there for you,” he said. Jaehwan spun around to stare at him. Sanghyuk’s face didn’t show much of anything. “I can do that, but only as a friend, Jaehwan. That’s all I can offer.”  
  
“A friend?” Jaehwan was aware of the inflection on the word, like it was dirty. He didn’t care, much.   
  
“If you’re willing to try,” Sanghyuk said calmly. “We can have a shot at it, at maybe being friends. That’s what’s on the table here. But you have to try, and we have to be working towards—”  
  
“Towards me falling out of love,” Jaehwan finished for him, his chest constricted suddenly. “Towards me fixing this.”   
  
This. Whatever _this_ was. It was what he’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to do at the start: to stop himself falling in love, and, when he failed that, to fall back out of it. But nothing had worked. Maybe things would be different now— Jaehwan had come clean, and that had caused its own sort of agony, but it was also a relief, for this filthy secret to be bared. Maybe with Sanghyuk helping him, they could fix this. Sanghyuk was integral to it, after all. Perhaps that was why Jaehwan had been unsuccessful at the start. If they could make it so that he didn’t love Sanghyuk anymore, surely it would all stop hurting so badly. Maybe he’d be able to see Sanghyuk without feeling that urge to be soft towards him, to be gentle with his feelings if not his body. That urge hurt too, because denying it felt like how denying the need to breathe had been as a human.   
  
Jaehwan wanted to reverse this, he supposed, he wanted to go back to not caring, to the way he had been, and yet— to not love Sanghyuk anymore, when it felt like such an important part of him— how was that even supposed to work?  
  
Some deep, secret part of himself knew he’d never be able to go back. Even if they reversed this. He was never going to be the same, he’d have bruises in the shape of Sanghyuk’s fingerprints on his heart for the rest of eternity.  
  
“Jaehwan,” Sanghyuk said gently. “That wasn’t necessarily what I meant. We have to work towards you being a _person_ again. No, I know, you’re not a human, but you’re still a person. And you’ve spent so long the way you are that all you really are is miserable and repressed, and you’re awful to be around.”  
  
“Thanks, love,” Jaehwan said. He sat back down.   
  
Sanghyuk looked unimpressed but ignored it. “If you falling out of love with me is the end result of it, then so be it. But that’s not what we’re working towards. You loving me isn’t the root cause of this, and I’m not so selfish that I’d help you only to make my life easier. Although it probably will. But the fact is, Jaehwan, you’ve been an asshole since long before you fell in love with me.”   
  
Jaehwan snorted. He couldn’t deny that, at the very least.   
  
Sanghyuk looked at him for a long moment. The almost-softness in his eyes made Jaehwan grit his teeth. “Why?” he asked. “What started all this?”   
  
Jaehwan recoiled, putting more space between them. Flashes, of so many things, flickered through his mind, the surge of emotions suddenly bubbling forth too much. He shook his head, saying, “No, not today. Not now.” It was too much to ask.   
  
“Okay.” Sanghyuk reached down and tugged his backpack from under the couch. “Now we watch last night’s episode of Game of Thrones together,” he added, pulling his laptop out. “Then I have to go in for the late shift of work, since I couldn’t call in sick again.”   
  
Jaehwan blinked at him, completely thrown.   
  
“Okay?” Sanghyuk asked.   
  
“Okay,” Jaehwan said dumbly, then, “What the fuck?”   
  
“This is what friends do,” Sanghyuk said, setting up the video on his screen. “They watch TV shows together. And since you definitely didn’t watch it last night, I thought we could watch it now.”   
  
Jaehwan didn’t say what he wanted to say, which was that he hadn’t seen the last few weeks’, for obvious reasons. Instead he just watched Sanghyuk as he tucked his legs up onto the couch, half underneath himself, trying to get comfortable. Then he reached down for something else, which turned out to be a blood bag.   
  
“Here,” he said. “Drink this.”   
  
“Love,” Jaehwan said in exasperation, but Sanghyuk just glared at him, so he began drinking it while Sanghyuk started up the episode.   
  
It turned out Sanghyuk had another two bags. He pressed them into Jaehwan’s hands wordlessly as they watched, whenever Jaehwan had finished the last one. He sat against his arm of the couch, his feet almost brushing Jaehwan’s leg. It was soothing, just to have him so close.   
  
Jaehwan drank the bags, careful not to say anything about how Sanghyuk’s own blood would be better for him. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding that the blood bags would do for now.   
  
“This is tricksy manipulation,” he complained halfway through the episode, and Sanghyuk gave him a small smile. It felt like it was hard worked for.   
  
There were thoughts niggling at Jaehwan’s mind, Sanghyuk’s words, _Why? What started all this?_ ringing through his head. They were always there, those dark thoughts, memories, lurking in the corner. Jaehwan had spent centuries shying away from looking at them, but he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe confessing would be cathartic, like pouring out his feelings for Sanghyuk had been. But he thought of the pain, and of the fact that he could barely admit so many of these things to even himself yet, and recoiled back, trying to distract himself with the taste of the blood in his mouth, the radiant heat coming off Sanghyuk’s body. If he pretended hard enough, he could imagine things were okay, that they were okay. That for the moment, they were together in the way that Jaehwan wanted.  
  
He’d thought that Sanghyuk might have been joking about having to go into work, but apparently he wasn’t. Once the episode finished, he shut his laptop and began clearing up his things, without a word, shattering the soft, fragile moment and bringing Jaehwan back into real world. Jaehwan watched him, wondering if he should speak, what he could say. The words that bubbled to the front of his mind burned and caught in his throat, but he wanted to speak, wanted to offer something, something to show Sanghyuk he could _try_.  
  
Jaehwan wanted to try. God, but he wanted to stop hurting so badly.  
  
Sanghyuk looked at him for a long moment before he said, “Bye, Jaehwan.” Jaehwan didn’t say anything, mouth pressed in a hard line and throat feeling constricted. Sanghyuk sighed, and made to leave. He walked slowly, patting his pockets as he went, making sure he had his keys or wallet, Jaehwan didn’t know.   
  
It had to be now. Sanghyuk was in the doorway, back turned, and Jaehwan made a small noise that had Sanghyuk pausing. For all that the words felt violently torn out of him, when they left his lips, they were very soft. “I regret asking to be turned.”   
  
Sanghyuk froze for a moment before he turned to look at him. His eyes were wide, disbelieving. Jaehwan clamped his mouth shut, setting his jaw. It was all he could bear to say right then, and maybe Sanghyuk recognised that. It was small, but it was just the start. It only needed to be small.  
  
“The next time we meet,” Sanghyuk said, equally soft, and Jaehwan thought he could hear a hint of a tremble in his voice, “I’m going to want to know why.”   
  
Then he left.


End file.
